Retelling the Three Little Pigs: Collusion
between Text and Image in Postmodern
Variations
Hélène Gaillard – Université de Bourgogne
Abstract
As one of the most famous folk tales, the story of the Three Little Pigs has been adapted many times but the recent postmodern variations are particularly interesting for the interaction between the textual and visual contents. The notions of perspective, narration and interpretation are central in all the three postmodern picture books selected for the following study.
Told by the unreliable wolf, Jon Scieszka’s narrative (1989) is a story characterized by unstability - an aspect further orchestrated by Lane Smith’s multiple cropping and framing effects. As the wolf claims that he has been framed, the visual input relies on multiple perspectives challenging the construction of meaning. Eugene Trivizas’ version (1993), illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, has a subtle intermedial approach opposing a traditional narrative and visual style to a more modern subtext and unusual angles. David Wiesner’s book (2001) crosses not only the textual but also the iconic boundaries of the original tale: the story shifts from traditional storyboard frames to a metafictional world where the pigs become more realistically depicted and gain autonomy by escaping the linear plot.
The three revisions of the pigs’ fable will be examined in the light of a new type of text/image interaction which I call “collusion” since it is based on a relationship where the visual and textual elements aim at creating an unstable environment by challenging both the original narrative and the readers. Collusion has to do with what is left unsaid, not directly showed, barely hinted at and constantly submitted to changes and modifications in order to cast reasonable doubt as regards the meaning of the new story.
Keywords
fairy tale, children’s literature, intermediality, text/image interaction, illustration, narrative, post-modernism
Résumé
Figurant parmi les contes les plus populaires, l’histoire des trois petits cochons a été maintes fois réécrite, mais les versions postmodernes contemporaines présentent un intérêt particulier du point de vue de l’interaction entre le texte et l’image. Dans les trois variations à l’étude dans cette analyse, les notions de perspective, de narration et d’interprétation sont centrales.
Raconté du point de vue du loup, le conte de Jon Scieszka (1989) est fondé sur une instabilité narrative à laquelle répondent les multiples distorsions picturales de Lane Smith. Si le loup déclare avoir été « piégé » (framed), les indices visuels sont autant d’embuscades tendues aux lecteurs dans la construction du sens. Le texte d’Eugene Trivizas (1993), illustré par Helen Oxenbury, propose une subtile approche intermédiale où la délicatesse du ton du récit et des dessins entrent en conflit avec des perspectives plus inquiétantes. L’ouvrage de David Wiesner (2001) ne se limite pas à dépasser les frontières narratives du conte d’origine : l’histoire se caractérise par un franchissement constant des cadres où les cochons traversent un univers métafictionnel pour acquérir une nouvelle autonomie narrative et picturale.
Ces trois versions du conte traditionnel seront ainsi examinées à la lumière d’un nouveau genre d’interaction entre mot et image que je nomme ici « collusion » car il s’agit d’une relation où les éléments textuels et picturaux travaillent de concert afin d’instiguer le doute et décontenancer le lecteur. La collusion prend place dans un environnement narratif et esthétique instable caractérisé par le changement de perspective ou règnent confusion et altération.
Mots-clés
One of the folk tales that best illustrates antagonism between the tamed and the untamed is The Three Little
Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. The story of a big bad wolf – embodying the wilderness – that tries to devour
the innocent little pigs – the epitome of domesticity – has been told throughout the centuries to warn against human carelessness and praise the value of hard work. But it is essentially a conflict between what is wild, out of control and knows no rules, and what is tamed, civilized and respectful of social conventions. Classified as number 124 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther system, the tale is a story of animality which essentially mirrors human behaviour. However, in its contemporary versions, this fight for power can be seen as echoing the quintessential opposition between text and image in picture books. It is particularly interesting to wonder if the text is seen as the wolf or the pigs within such a framework.
This issue also poses the question of the subversive potential commonly assigned to each medium. Are words more disruptive than images? In Reading Contemporary Picture Books, David Lewis contends that “what the words do to the pictures is not the same as what the pictures do to the words” (2001, 35). Images are assumed to have a weaker semantic capability and to be more dependent on words, even though their status has been revised, thanks to Maurice Sendak’s works and his essay on Caldecott (1988, 21–25). It thus seems that the wolf better embodies the text, as it is the predatory creature trying to rule over the pigs (images) by exposing and finally ingesting them. The moral of the story indicates that pigs – that is to say the images – can’t afford to be careless; they must make great efforts instead of fooling around, and they have to abide by the rules to have a chance of survival. One must also bear in mind that at the end of the original story, although the wolf/text is stronger, the pigs/images are more creative and finally win over.
While in early versions of the story, images were few and had a merely illustrative function, modern picture books offer a new literary environment where text and images are both responsible for narrative structure. Moreover, traditional balances of power are reversed in postmodern tales whose main principle is the disruption of conventions and the reversal of values. In this respect, I will try to determine if there is a distinctive pattern in the way words and images function in postmodern versions of the three little pigs: are they mainly opposed, or do they instead work together as a sign of the ultimate subversion of the tale of animal antagonism? Far from discussing animism and anthropomorphism, this introductory comparison casts the question of textual/ pictorial hierarchy in a different light. But the aim of this study will be to assess the interaction between words and images in relation to the impact they have on the reception of the narrative. After a brief review of semiotic theories on picture books and fractured fairy tales, a new paradigm for pictorial and lexical relationships will be proposed and exemplified in three variations of The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf.
Typology of text/image relationships in picture books and postmodern features in
chil-dren’s literature
From the 1990s, academic research has attempted to categorize relationships between words and images in picture books. Scholars have suggested different typologies to analyze the interaction between pictures and words in children’s literature. Schwarcz’s early analysis put forward terms such as congruency, elaboration, specification, amplification, extension, complementation, alternation, deviation, and counterpoint (1982) to account for text/image synergy. Nodelman (1988) was also among the first to theorize the relationship established between the pictorial and textual modes of narratives. He argued in favour of a visual grammar by
demonstrating the existence of “a system underlying visual communication that is something like a grammar – something like the system of relationships and contexts that makes verbal communication possible”(9).
W. J. T Mitchell’s reference to the term “imagetext” (1994, 9) heralded a new synthetic way to consider visual and verbal elements in so far as his approach refused a separate treatment and looked instead at “imagetexts” as “composite synthetic works (or concepts) that combine image and text” (89). As such, Mitchell paved the way for Lewis’s ecological perspective emphasizing picture books as a medium where pictures and words “interact ecologically, [so] that the book acts as a miniature ecosystem”(2001, 48).
Although Nikolajeva and Scott (2001) criticized the existing frameworks between words and pictures in children’s literature, they eventually returned to Schwarcz’s early analysis of the word – picture dynamic and suggested five main modes of interaction: symmetrical, enhancing, complementary, counterpointing and contradictory. In spite of the diverging labels, there seems to be a commonly acknowledged structure to pictorial/ verbal interaction that cannot be sufficiently understood as either parallel or interdependent storytelling but could be described with the following terms:
• Correspondence: when the text and the picture express the same idea without any major alteration or addition;
• Cooperation: when one form of communication reveals more elements than the other (description, details or feelings);
• Conflict: when words and images are opposed and indicate incompatible elements.
These three categories seem valid from the perspective of the word/picture exchange, yet they mainly assess the degree of agreement between each medium and do not focus on the construction of meaning. If different types of interaction generally overlap in picture books, cooperation and conflict are predominant in postmodern tales. Readers must then carefully examine text and pictures alternately. The level of attention in the construction of meaning is even more crucial in the case of a conflict since readers must go back and forth between the textual and visual elements to try and resolve the opposing narratives. These two types of connections are particularly used in fractured picture books, as they signal a semantic obstacle to the classic story. Indeed, postmodern tales are characterized by elements complexifying the story in terms of focalization, trustworthiness and metafiction that open new paths to the original development of the narrative structure.
Idiosyncrasies of postmodern communication in picture books include: a challenge of narrative conventions; a tendency to break boundaries; a predilection for excess, indeterminacy and parody; and an invitation for readers to participate in the story. According to Cherie Allan, postmodern picture books aim at looking beneath the surface of things, destabilizing modes of representation, disturbing the air of reality and interrogating representations of the past. Although Lewis (1992) argued that postmodern picture books are more of a trend than a real genre, he nevertheless identified a number of common features, among which were a “general willingness to break boundaries, subvert conventions and parody settled norms of storytelling” (84). Nikolajeva and Scott (2001) pointed to characteristics that include figurative language, framing, intertextuality and intra-iconic texts and the use of visual and textual self-referentiality. Aspects of metafiction such as framing and intertextuality will be prominently discussed in this analysis.
In this postmodern context, I want to suggest a new type of text/image interaction that seems typical of the construction of meaning in fractured tales. I suggest the term “collusion” because it best expresses the way words and images collude or plot against the reader and the narrative itself. This fourth type of interaction not only takes into account the way words/images act in relation to each other, but also considers the impact this new order has on the whole reception of the story. In this particular relationship, both visual and verbal elements aim at fooling the reader in a very subtle way. They never systematically contradict each other or prove lacking and incomplete. Instead, collusion has to do with what is left unsaid, not directly shown, barely hinted at, and is constantly submitted to changes and modifications in order to cast reasonable doubt in the resolution of what the text and the pictures come down to. Collusion then occurs when words and images are characterized by unreliability and instability, and are subjected to a shift in their own functions so as to disrupt the narrative. Texts and images achieve this by extending their field of influence, referring to other texts and images and enlarging the scope of their textual and visual signifiers. They can do it quite easily because they refer to a well-known pre-existing context: to be fully enjoyed, fractured fairy tales must relate to a commonly told narrative. Additionally, the postmodern tendency to use intertextuality and metafiction provides a literary environment wherein this collusive type of interaction can thrive.
Collusive dynamics in three variations of the Three Little Pigs story
In Jon Scieszka’s revision (1989), the illustrations by Lane Smith match the atmosphere of uncertainty established by the wolf’s first-person narrative. Although relative anonymity seems to prevail in the book cover by the naming “A. Wolf”, the wolf/narrator introduces himself as early as the second page, suggesting “You can call me Al”. This intertextual reference to the famous Depression-era song written by Yip Harburg, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” is meant to attract sympathy from the reader (“Say, don’t you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time. Why don’t you remember, I’m your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?”), but it also relates to Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” pop song – that topped the UK and US charts in 1986 – about a desperate man trying to get “a shot at redemption” who does not “want to end up a cartoon, in a cartoon graveyard”.
In only a few words, the atmosphere of uncertainty and untrustworthiness is set up through this first attempt at collusion based on intertextuality. The book cover is also rather explicit: words cannot be trusted as they are the result of hearsay “as told to” and have been rearranged. Indeed, the story that is told here is based on the canonical tale of the Three Little Pigs, hinting at other widespread fables such as Little Red Riding Hood or The Wolf and the Seven Lambs. But it also rests on contemporary media reports through the integration of several newspaper forms. Ultimately, all these storytelling myths are debunked. The unreliability of the narrative is suggested from the very beginning in the book cover through the newspaper clips, which are in no way related to the tale. It is a cut-up report of a seaplane flight. While some parts of the text are upside down, the juxtaposition of the words does not make sense. Additionally, the narrative limits are also blurred between the wolf’s and the pigs’ report, as the switch from the “Daily Wolf” to the “Daily Pig” at the end of the book is not clear. Beyond the criticism of media bias, the special iconic and semantic features of the book cover do not simply challenge verbal credibility but also question the truth of the pictorial contents since the paper clips are as much visual as textual.
The shifts in perspective and the ensuing unreliability are further enhanced in the pictures, which at times offer instances of a subjective viewpoint (4)1 but mainly opt for an external perspective. Additionally, the use
of close-ups, blurriness, cropping, high angles and sepia colours signal the instability of the pictorial world which appears as a distortion of the original tale. Neither words nor images can be fully trusted for they are easily manipulated: the wolf uses fairy-tale rhetoric at strategic moments, contrasting with his blunt comments. The repetitive patterns, “Well I huffed. And I puffed. And I sneezed a great sneeze”, echo the canonical phrase “So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down” and give credit to his assertions. The deceptiveness of both language and image also seems to be the disguised point of the letters being arbitrarily designed as special features of the story on page 5: letters can take any shape and images can be modelled into any letter. All attempts to increase the trustworthiness of signs is thwarted, as expressed in the wolf’s grotesque demonstration of the real cause for the crimes in both words and pictures.
Hence, from the first pages, this new version encourages readers to question what is being shown and said. Particular attention must then be paid to details, be they visual or textual, not in the hope of finding a truthful element but to create further distance from the world of signs. The sandwich (3) and the cake (6) contain pieces of “cute little animals” (3). The double spread on pages 10 – 11 staging the wolf blowing down the little pig’s house surreptitiously shows the predatory animal’s pointy ears and his crooked tail, reminding viewers of the devil, while the close-up of the wolf’s mouth (9), showing an oval hole with teeth, is rather uncanny. The value of visual signs is to be questioned and so are words. When the wolf says “I don’t know how this whole Big Bad Wolf thing got started, but it’s all wrong” (2), does the adjective “wrong” mean it is “incorrect” or does it mean “immoral”? Similarly, the wolf’s numerous addresses to the reader “Can you believe it” (6), “you’re not going to believe it” (17), “wolf’s honor” (17), reinforce the postmodern impression that he is not to be trusted and that all narratives are deceptive.
As a result, the “big” picture is never accessible in this supposedly true version: the illustrations and the text offer partial accounts and are based on sheer subjectivity. The cropped frames, the peculiar angles and the twisted perspectives correspond to the unreliability of the narrator, the collage aspect of the story and the double entendres in the text. Both images and words plot against the plot and the collusion reaches a climax when the wolf concludes, “That is it. The real story. I was framed” (25). If, at the level of the story, he seems to have been framed by the pigs and the journalists, he has also been literally and physically framed by the writer and the illustrator from the very beginning. Framing is an important element of the story at both the intra and extradiegetic levels. The wolf’s supposedly true story is an embedded narrative, contained in the framing canonical tale of the Three Little Pigs. The wolf’s resistance to being contained within a frame is visible in his attempt to go beyond the physical limits of the vignettes. This is shown in the book cover, it is repeated throughout the book, and it occurs at the end when the wolf tries to get out of jail and crosses the edge of the illustration with his pot. He is also framed on page 15 as his tail is assimilated to a work of art from this peculiar angle. The water jug resting on the bottom line of the vignette also attracts the viewer’s attention and further questions the edges of representation. It points to the limits of all representations. As suggested by Daniel Arasse about the presence of a snail at the bottom edge of Francesco del Cossa’s painting
The Annunciation (1472), such a device draws attention to the material presence of the picture and signals 1 For clarity’s sake, the pagination is mine. In all the following references, the pages are counted from the first page of the actual narrative
ambiguity between the viewer’s context and the world of representation. Another detail that cannot be easily identified as pertaining to the intradiegetic or the extradiegetic environment is visible at the end of the story: a newspaper page being folded into an origami sculpture becomes a symbol of the manipulation of both words and images. Finally, who framed whom seems to be the real issue in the story as the notion of framing and cropping has an impact on the whole narrative and points to metafictional concerns.
A second instance of the collusive dynamics at work between text and image is found in David Wiesner’s retelling of the three little pigs story. In this version published in 2001, the pigs manage to escape the original narrative, navigate into an imaginative blank space and recreate their own story by picking up elements from other fairy tales. Known mostly for his highly acclaimed wordless picture books Tuesday (1991) and Flotsam (2006), American author and illustrator David Wiesner demonstrates his ability to both write and draw in The
Three Pigs (2001). Predictably, Wiesner’s preference for visual storytelling affects his writing, which then
mirrors typical tale rhetorics and turns out to be highly pictorial.
Based on a diversity of drawing and writing styles, as well as a variety of fonts and voices (direct speech and third-person external focalization) this new story points to the inherent instability of the world of narratives and the flexibility of all representations. At the beginning, the story maintains a stark fidelity to the original plot, retaining its wording and using a traditional font style, watercolour panels and picturesque characters. From page 3, as the first pig flees from the original recounting, his appearance changes. The depiction of the moment when the transition occurs increases the reader’s awareness of the different modes of representations. As the pig breaks free from the fantasy frame, he becomes more realistic, with a detailed rendition of hair, and he is granted a shadow along with a voice, directly expressed via speech bubbles. The next page shows a perplexed wolf looking for the pig, turned towards the readers, signalling that the text “and ate the pig up” is erroneous. Indeed, the text goes uninterrupted and follows a classic continuum despite the pig’s escape. This metafictional device allows readers to question the limits of the text. In the double spread on pages 6 and 7, the three pigs leave the physical space of the diegesis and wander around the pages they blow away. It is particularly significant that they fold a page of their own story into a makeshift airplane and it is no coincidence that both Lane and Wiesner resort to the same imagery: not only is the paper plane a symbol of freedom, but it also signals the versatile nature of textual and visual forms. The pigs seem to enjoy the liberty offered by their new status as expressed by one of the pig’s comments, “Now we have room to move” (6). Wiesner’s use of the blank space, which he described in his Caldecott Medal acceptance speech as “this endless, empty white nothingness” (2002, 394), hints at the fact that text and image must be overcome for they are not the only cognitive means. As he further insisted, he wanted “to push the pictures aside, go behind them and to pell them up, and explore the blank expanse that I envisioned was within the books” (394). Not only can pictures and words be deceptive, incomplete or partial, but they can operate against imagination, which – according to the author – constitutes the main source of interpretation. Wiesner also underlines the interconnectedness of narratives by offering a glimpse at a variety of pictures and texts that are to remain hardly accessible. By staging such an incursion into the imaginative world of fairy tales, Wiesner contends that any narrative is dependent on an infinite number of visual and textual references activated by memory and imagination. The meaning of a story is thus to be found not just in the text or the images contained in a book but also in the relationships they foster with previous and personal representations. As Wiesner insists, it is particularly important to consider that words and images can be interpreted and transcended: “My own view
has no more, no less, validity than that of any other viewer” (421).
In order to open up the fields of interpretation, Wiesner introduces readers to other narratives, adapting the pictorial and verbal codes in the process. The pigs step into a well-known nursery rhyme (“Hey Diddle Diddle” first illustrated by Randolph Caldecott) and a typical fairy tale starring a dragon. Each time, the fonts, wording and appearance of the pigs differ. Wiesner also includes a reference to his own picture book Tuesday. The double-page spread showing infinite rows of children literature blurs the distinction between words and images. Intertextuality is paradoxically accessible via images, which reinforces Wiesner’s belief that pictures can be exclusively responsible for a narrative on their own and be text. The interchange between the value of text and image is also visible by the end of the book where letters become images, a phenomenon similar to the notion of intra-iconic text described by Scott and Nikolajeva (73). Letters are rearranged so as to come back to the conventional ending of the story, “They lived happily ever after”. The interchange between words and pictures gives the semblance of great freedom whereas in fact they finally reproduce the traditional ending of the tale. The secret agreement between words and images appearing in so many different forms deceives the reader into believing that boundaries can really be broken. But the opposition between the blank open space of the double-page spread and the crowded room depicted in the last page is absolutely telling; it exhorts readers to suspect that such liberty is limited. Hence, without ever actually questioning the value and plausibility of the original tale, the collusion between words and pictures reproduces the “deceptive” nature of all stories, after having pretended that freedom within a narrative can exist, after having misled the reader into believing that boundaries can really be broken. It seems that to Wiesner, only a totally blank picture book would give the opportunity to transcend words and image so as to enjoy unlimited imaginative freedom.
Trivizas’ tale entitled The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig seems at first sight the most conventional of the three because of its classic watercolour illustrations by Helen Oxenbury and its apparent pacifist morality. This time, the pig is the antagonist who comes after the wolves, a team of clever hard-workers who have been warned by their mother of the existence of the “big bad pig”. As the pig is inherently weaker, he uses modern technology to destroy the wolves’ sturdy homes and resorts to using highly destructive material. The integration of modern forms of violence is total: the sledgehammer, the barbed wire and dynamite, which come as a surprise to readers, are not highlighted by textual emphasis or a different visual treatment. They perfectly blend in with the style and design. Even though the conclusion is apparently an optimistic one, with the traditional “they lived happily ever after” ending, we could observe earlier that the text is lying/wrong – “it was the strongest, securest house one could imagine” (16) – or incomplete and lacking compared to the pictures (1). If the illustrations seem to match the textual contents, readers or children being read to will notice details that are quite disturbing. Doubt regarding the text may arise from the very first page with the tableau showing the wolves around their mother who happens to be a particularly stylish and self-centred female. About to send her children into the outside world inhabited by an evil creature, she only cares about her nail polish and her tail being curled. Her fluffy, heeled, pink slippers right next to the bed also contradict her status as the loving mother-figure. If nothing in the text hints at this portrayal, readers are left with the impression of a heartless mother from the beginning.
Oxenbury’s pictorial choices set the tone for a rather cruel fictional world. The development of the story presents a crescendo of harsh, clashing violence until an unexpected twist occurs when the wolves opt for a
different strategy and resort to the most delicate of building materials: flowers. Moved by the scent, the pig turns friendly and the wolves invite him home. From this point on, the narrative seems to be oriented towards a happy ending. Yet a few elements debunk this unexpected peaceful resolution. The first disquieting detail is the tarantella the pig starts dancing after he smells the flowers. Dating back to the Middle Ages, this Italian dance originally “simulated exorcism of frenzy and death throes caused by the bite of a wolf spider” (Snodgrass, 316; emphasis is mine). In the next page, as the four of them play “piggy-in-the-middle” – a game whose name connotes tension and arguments – the darker wolf has its mouth wide open, ready to catch the ball which is the exact same colour as the pig’s skin. In the closing picture, the pig dominates the scene, not leaving enough space for the wolves: they are literally and pictorially dominated. They seem submissive. Yet the teapot, which is recurrent throughout the book as a detail, catches the eye in this final picture. Particular attention was paid to it in the text as the formula “for all the tea leaves in our china tea pot” replaces the traditional phrasing “not by the hair on my chinny chin chin”. The teapot, which is the only piece of china that the wolves are careful enough to flee with (9, 15, 21), contains boiling water. Obviously, it is an intertextual reminder of the caldron the pigs had when about to be invaded by the wolf. In some early versions, the caldron served to kill the intruder. In the final illustration, there is also a plate, which has the same colours and patterns as the teapot; it contains berries. Although the text says they are “strawberries and wolfberries” (30), we know that berries – just like mushrooms – can be easily mistaken and are commonly used as poison in folktales. So what I contend here is that the text – by being partly unreliable – and the images – by having totally accepted violence – imply that there is no end to violence, a notion that goes against what is said and shown at first sight and first reading. By trying to force a happy fairy-tale ending onto contemporary social order and modern day violence, words and images ultimately become suspicious. Yet since the pictures cannot be said to be in real conflict with words, the term “collusion” seems to fit this type of interaction best when failure to communicate is underlined by the semiotic and semantic limits of both verbal and visual elements. While most commentators look at the ending as a potential for redemption, Nodelman also sees this happy resolution as pure irony: “I suspect it makes fun of anyone impractical enough to pretend to believe that flowers might be stronger than armor-plate” (1996, 263). Eventually, the unexpected twist of the story advocating for flower power cannot help but remind readers of the failure of hippy non-violence to change the world. The intertextual context is not, this time, the world of fairy tales but social history, the history of violence and crime culture. The fact that Eugene Trivizas is also a specialist in criminal justice and crowd disorder gives more credit to my suspicion that we should not trust this happy ending staged by words and images.
To conclude, Arthur Berger best encapsulated the new semantic openings brought about by postmodernism when he argued, “the postmodern world may be more unsettling than the modernist world it replaces, but it is at the very least much more exciting” (2003, 100). Indeed, not only are picture books subversive, but the interaction between words and images resist most attempts to define finite categories. Hence, young and mature readers often enjoy reading fractured tales and are left with questions that challenge the traditional reception of words and images. By suggesting a comparison between wolf/text and pigs/pictures, I have attempted to show that we still think of the relationship between words and images in terms of hierarchy or antagonism, whereas in postmodern picture books they seem to function, more than ever, in unison and offer rich examples of transmediality. In fractured fairy tales, words and images are two channels of communication, acting this time not against each other, but against past narratives and pre-existing representations to better challenge
readers. They signal a new order where all ways of expression are questioned but appear paradoxically more trustworthy in their ability to create a supra-level of meaning with another code.
Bibliography
Primary texts
Scieszka, John, and Lane Smith. The True Story of The Three Little Pigs. London: Puffin, 1989.
Trivizas, Eugene, and Helen Oxenbury. The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Wiesner, David. The Three Pigs. New York: Clarion, 2001.
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___. The Pleasure of Children’s Literature. NY: Longman, 1996.
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Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. The Encyclopedia of World Folk Dance. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016.
Uther, Hans-Jörg. “Animal Tales, Tales of Magic, Religious Tales, and Realistic Tales, with an Introduction”, in The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography Based on the System of Antti
Aarne and Stith Thompson. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004.
Wiesner, David. Tuesday. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
___. “Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speech”. Horn Book Magazine, 68.4, 1992, 416–22. ___. “Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speech”. Horn Book Magazine, 78.4, 2002, 393–99. ___. Flotsam. New York: Clarion, 2006.
Hélène Gaillard is a lecturer in American Painting at the University of Dijon. She has published numerous
papers examining the relationship between art, identity and culture. Key issues motivating her work also include modernity as well as text/image translation. She has explored these topics in 19th- and 20th-century visual arts and literature.
